The present invention is directed generally to a method for decreasing air leakage between adjacent elements in a data center and, more particularly, placing a self-expanding gap filler in a gap between adjacent elements in a data center.
The self-expanding gap filler is useable in the field of data centers in which it is important to provide proper airflow control/blockage, particularly, in data centers that include hot and cold aisles. Typically, in these data centers, hot and cold aisles are provided separate from each other through the use of containment components such as physical structures of walls, doors, and blanking panels. In addition, these data centers will include multiple server rack cabinets associated with a hot aisle and a cold aisle. The server rack cabinets may take the form of a steel vertical box about two feet wide and six to seven feet tall. Within each server rack cabinet, one or more stacked computing devices, which may include computer servers and associated components, are provided. The server rack cabinets are arranged such that a front of the server rack cabinet is located at the cold aisle and a rear of the server rack cabinet is located at the hot aisle. With this arrangement, cooling air is provided to the cold aisle, drawn through the computing devices, and heated air is discharged to the hot aisle. The flow of air through the server rack cabinets can be influenced by individual fans of the computer servers as well as the air circulation system between the hot aisle and the cold aisle.
Due to the fast growing data center market and massive power consumption associated with its infrastructure, the need to conserve resources is of utmost importance in using these data centers. Separating data centers into hot and cold aisles by use of containment vastly increases cooling capacities and has huge energy saving benefits. The amount of savings directly correlates with the quality of separation between the hot and cold aisles. However, because server rack cabinets can vary in size, shape and deployment within a data center, gaps may exist between adjacent server rack cabinets, between server rack cabinets and a floor, and between the server rack cabinets and a containment system using hot and cold aisles. These gaps may allow undesirable air mixture to occur as heated air may escape from the hot aisle through the gaps and mix with cooling air provided to the cold aisle, thereby increasing the temperature of the cooling air before it is drawn through the computing devices located in the server rack cabinets. Based on the various configurations of the server rack cabinets, these gaps can be located in very tight spots or hard to reach areas.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,183,310, which is hereby incorporated by reference, disclose one example of a data center that provides a hot aisle and a cold aisle to control cooling of stacked computer servers and associated components. In addition to providing server rack cabinets, the disclosed data center provides stalls into which individual server rack cabinets are placed. Each of the stalls is pre-installed with filler elements that expand inward from sides of the stalls to contact the server rack cabinets later installed therein in an effort to prevent mixing of heated air from the hot aisle and the cooling air from the cold aisle. Because the disclosed data center uses stalls, which are pre-installed with filler elements, in addition to the server rack cabinets, the data center has added complexity over systems that do not require stalls, and is not useful is data centers in which the server rack cabinets are already in place. In addition, it does not provide flexibility in addressing leakages between the hot aisle and cool aisle after installation nor does it solve leakages for existing systems.